I observed that the vitals of the village were the grocery, the
bar-room, the post-office, and the bank...

Usage notes

When referring to goods, the singular form is
primarily used attributively, as in a grocery bill, a grocery list,
etc. The plural form, groceries, is much more
frequently used to refer to actual goods, especially in the
US.

Related terms

References

A grocery store is a store established primarily
for the retailing of
food. A grocer, the owner of a grocery
store, stocks different kinds of foods from assorted places and
cultures, and sells them to customers. Large grocery stores that
stock products other than food, such as clothing or household
items, are called supermarkets. Small grocery
stores that mainly sell fruits and vegetables are known as produce
markets (U.S) or greengrocers (Britain), and
small grocery stores that predominantly sell snack foods and
sandwiches are known as convenience
stores or delicatessens.

History in the United States

U.S. grocery stores are descended from trading
posts , which sold not only food but clothing, household items,
tools, furniture, and other miscellaneous merchandise. These
trading posts evolved into larger retail businesses known as
general
stores. These facilities generally dealt only in "dry" goods
such as flour, dry beans, baking soda,
and canned foods. Perishable foods were instead obtained from
specialty markets: Fresh meat was obtained from a butcher, milk from a local
dairy, eggs and vegetables
were either produced by families themselves, bartered for with
neighbors, or purchased at a farmers'
market or a local greengrocer.

Many rural areas still contain general stores
that sell goods ranging from cigars to imported napkins.
Traditionally, general stores have offered credit to their
customers, a system of payment that works on trust rather than
modern credit cards.
This allowed farm families to buy staples until their harvest could
be sold.

The first self-service
grocery store was opened in 1916 in Memphis,
Tennessee by Clarence
Saunders, an inventor and entrepreneur. Prior to this
innovation, customers gave orders to clerks to fill. Saunder's
invention allowed a much smaller number of clerks to service the
customers, proving successful (according to a 1929 Time
magazine) "partly because of its novelty, partly because neat
packages and large advertising appropriations have made retail
grocery selling almost an automatic procedure."

International

The business of grocery stores varies from
nation to nation; however, the stores are all similar in their
principle selling of edible goods. The nature of these goods varies
with local availability and traditional diet.

Europe

Because many European cities (Rome, for example) are
already so dense in population and buildings, large supermarkets,
in the American sense, may not replace the neighborhood grocery
store. However, 'Metro' stores have been appearing in town and city
centres in many countries, leading to the decline of independent
smaller stores, and large out-of-town supermarkets and hypermarkets, such as
Tesco and
Sainsbury's in
the United
Kingdom, have been steadily sapping the trade from smaller
stores.

Consumer spending

globalize section The US Labor Department
has calcuated that food purchased at home and in restaurants are 13
percent of household purchases, behind 32 percent for housing and
18 percent for transportation. The average US family spent $280 per
month or $3,305 per year at grocery stores in 2004. The newsletter
Dollar Stretcher survey found $149 a month for a single person,
$257 for a couple and $396 for a family of four.http://www.stretcher.com/stories/990705a.cfm